Sworded Affair

Chapter 2: Radio Ga Ga

That feels really weird.

That was Emma's overriding thought as she continued to force Epitaph as deep as she could down the Parasite Demon’s eye socket. There was no pain when she called the blade into being; in fact she hadn’t felt any pain since her miraculous return to the land of the living.

Instead, the loss of anima came with a soul-deep certainty that she was now lesser for it, and that losing it all would result in true death. That sensation didn’t last for very long of course: with each passing moment she regained more anima as the Demon’s wound worsened, both her best efforts and its own thrashing deepening the injury. When at last it pulled both tongue and skull free from her reach, Emma's anima was already nearly back to full.

Demonstrating more intelligence than Emma had expected; the Demon turned to flee, thoughts of food forgotten as survival instincts took precedence. It didn’t do much good though: the injuries already suffered hindered the retreat, whilst Emma was near-fresh as she pursued. Ultimately, the Demon managed less than ten feet before Emma chopped its legs off at the knees, following through with a decapitating strike that brought matters to a head.

[Combat tutorial complete. Enemy slain. 20 XP gained.]

“All that for a fifth of a level?” Emma complained, though there was no real heat in her voice, not after getting an unexpected second lease on life.

[Bloodthirsty are we? Fear not, for the new era may lack many things, but not enemies. Never enemies.]

Laughing softly at that, Emma finally made to depart the basement that had become her tomb, albeit only for the briefest of moments. Making her way up the stairs, she winced as always at the creaking that accompanied every step; she’d forever been rather conscious of her weight, something that donning a set of plate armor had clearly done no favors.

[You are literally only a set of plate armor right now, something that weighs at most sixty pounds at the heaviest. When was the last time those stairs were repaired?]

“Probably before I was born,” Emma replied, conceding the point as she strode past the empty door frame and back to the ground floor (the first floor for those across the Atlantic).

Emerging into the stairwell, Emma found the house more or less as she’d last seen it, two hours or so of cleaning ago. The curtains were shut, the walls a sterile white interspersed with poorly painted flowers, the temperature comfortable at what she estimated was roughly 68 degree, and there was even the lingering scent of mom’s favorite incense in the air.

“Why do I have a sense of smell at all?” Emma wondered. “Sight, hearing and touch I get, since they’re needed to fight properly, but smell?”

[Smell is good for tracking, though you’re right it’s not strictly necessary for front-line combat. The earliest iterations of the class lacked several senses, but it turned out suddenly losing something a user had enjoyed for their entire life had, um, unpleasant effects on their mental health. Believe me, there have been many, many patches to the classes since those early days.]

“Early adopters always lose out,” Emma nodded sagely, having heard similar sentiments from her parents often enough, usually whenever their latest spur of the month purchase broke down.

It never dissuaded them from a subsequent purchase, Emma reflected as she headed upstairs towards her bedroom, before stopping at the top of the stairs. There, facing the full-length mirror installed so that guests could see themselves ascend, Emma finally saw her full appearance for the first time since her rebirth.

“Why do I have hair?”

A reasonable second question, Emma thought, given she wasn’t meant to have a body any more.

[Oh, you can blame the Founder’s grandson for that. He kept complaining that nobody could see his glorious locks on the battlefield, so a caveat was added for his bloodline alone. It’s not real hair in your case, but close enough that few can tell the difference.]

“I’m not complaining,” Emma muttered as she gave her bleached white locks a tug. “A helmet would still be more useful though; I mean honestly, a full-face visor and exposed hair? Why not add a port for drinks while you’re at it?”

[That also exists; just will it open.]

Emma did so, sighing in exasperation as a feeding tube extended from her mask.

[Keep in mind, most of the previous users weren’t dead. They needed their three stimulant rations a day in the trenches to keep fighting the good fight. Your sense of taste is still intact as well, so you can enjoy a few drinks too. Won’t heal you though.]

Emma gave her hair a few harder tugs as she digested that particular tidbit; still no pain, though she could clearly feel pressure where she was pulling.

[Tactile sensation is useful for a soldier. Debilitating pain less so; understandably, the former was left intact but with a hard cap to avoid the latter.]

“Good to know,” Emma shrugged, before deciding she’d done enough self-examination for the day.

Heading into her bedroom at last, she walked past her wardrobe filled with clothes she no longer needed, before facepalming. Her phone and laptop were charred wrecks on her desk, the wood around them warped by the heat. The sockets they were plugged into were of similar condition, plastic fused against the plugs as though they’d taken a thousand volts each. A quick check in the other rooms showed the same; spare phones, tablets, smart TVs, alarm clocks, anything even remotely digital had been left unrecoverable.

“This feels a bit too targeted,” Emma noted, picking up the burned shell of her brother’s spare phone for examination. “I’ve heard of power surges damaging electronics, but not to this degree, and it wouldn’t explain this one.”

True to form, her brother had neglected to plug it in when he went out, but it was still destroyed along with all the rest.

[Targeting communications is a common wartime tactic. No chance the Demon downstairs could have pulled this off though.]

Whether an unlikely coincidence or enemy action, she had no real answer. Belatedly, Emma also realized there was a high chance her family were all dead, given her own experience thus far. Strangely, she was a lot less bothered by the thought than she’d expected.

[You’ve already died once and come back. Perspectives inevitably change after something like that. Besides, they’re also all scions of the founder. Don’t count them out until you see the bodies. Speaking of which, have a quest!

Blood Borne

Objective: Find your Father

Objective: Find your Mother

Objective: Find your Brother

Reward: ???]

Accepting the System's words and happy for the distraction of concrete objectives, Emma thought about where her family might be. Last she'd heard, her brother was at school playing football (association, not gridiron), her mom was attending a concert and her dad was working late again at the office. Three locations she could head to, none particularly close by foot. She was still undecided as she headed out through the front door, forgoing any supplies in favor of moving faster unencumbered.

“Oh.”

It was hard to blame Emma for freezing at the gate. She understandably found it jarring; looking around the quaint suburban neighborhood where she’d spent her whole childhood and seeing only burned out husks of houses and still-burning gardens. Somehow, her house was the only one spared, though the cars out front hadn't been so lucky.

“Our house was built to the same standards as the others, it was a planned development.” Emma frowned. “Why the difference?”

[There’s ERROR here. Not much, but enough to spare your home from the initial ERROR. Damnit, stupid filter. Sorry, you’re on your own for this one. Them’s the rules I’m afraid.]

“That’s alright, you tried,” Emma accepted the apology easily. “I do intend to find out how this happened though, if only for curiosity’s sake.”

[Sounds like a plan.

Quest obtained:

404 - Answers Not Found

Objective: Discover the cause of the Apocalypse

Reward: ERROR]